Questioning planning arrangements by submitting comments to local spatial development plans for rural areas in Poland

The aim of the article was to characterize and assess the comments submitted to draft local spatial development plans for rural areas. The review included lists of comments to 74 draft local plans for rural areas of four different types, adopted in the years 2010–2022. These lists contained a total of 2109 comments. The subject of the analysis was the number of comments, their subject matter, and the occurrence of collective comments. Draft local plans do not usually arouse interest among residents, and comments to them are submitted by individuals, even when these plans cover the area of ​​a village or several villages. The most controversial are the planning arrangements in the areas around the capitals of voivodeships, except for the smallest ones. The desire to change the purpose of land for housing development, opposition to a potentially burdensome investment, and the location of roads were the most common thematic categories of comments. Based on three features, types of formal social reaction to the draft plan were proposed. In over 1/3 of all analyzed cases, this reaction was negligible. In addition, two types can be distinguished: an intense, thematically focused collective reaction (occurring in the event of a controversial investment location) and a weak, thematically focused individual reaction (most often expressing the desire of property owners to change the intended use of the land). The article is based on the results of research financed by the National Science Centre (project: "Mechanisms and effects of local community influence on decision-making in the processes of shaping non-urban space", grant number 2021/43/D/HS4/01720).